TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — The Israeli military is preparing for a possible ground operation in Lebanon, the Israeli army chief said Wednesday as Hezbollah hurled dozens of projectiles into Israel, including a missile aimed at Tel Aviv that was the militant group's deepest strike yet.
Addressing troops on the northern border, Chief of Staff Lt. Gen. Herzi Halevi said the latest Israeli airstrikes were designed to ”prepare the ground for your possible entry and to continue degrading Hezbollah.”
In an apparent reference to the missile fired at Tel Aviv, he said: "Today, Hezbollah expanded its range of fire, and later today, they will receive a very strong response. Prepare yourselves.”
In recent days, the Israeli military has said it had no immediate plans for a ground invasion. Halevi’s statement was the strongest yet suggesting troops could move in.
With hostilities intensifying, the Israeli military said Wednesday it would activate some reserve troops. The army's announcement that it would call up two reserve brigades for missions in the north offered another sign that Israel plans tougher action.
Tensions between Israel and the Lebanese militant group have steadily escalated over the last 11 months. Hezbollah has been firing rockets, missiles and drones into northern Israel in solidarity with Palestinians in Gaza and Hamas, another Iran-backed militant group. Israel has responded with increasingly heavy airstrikes and the targeted killing of Hezbollah commanders while threatening a wider operation.
Nearly a year of fighting had already displaced tens of thousands of people on both sides of the border before the recent escalation.
Israel has vowed to do whatever it takes to ensure its citizens can return to their homes in the north, while Hezbollah has said it will keep up its rocket attacks until there is a cease-fire in Gaza, something that appears increasingly remote.
To allow displaced Israelis to got back to their homes, “we are preparing the process of a maneuver,” Halevi said.
As tension spiraled, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken urged Israel and Hezbollah to step back, saying all-out war would be disastrous for the region and its people.
In New York for the annual U.N. General Assembly, Blinken said the U.S. was working on a plan to de-escalate tensions and allow Israelis and Lebanese to return to their homes in border areas.
“The best way to get that is not through war, not through escalation,” but through a diplomatic agreement, he said in an interview with CBS News.
U.S. officials say they are floating ideas but have not been specific. Some of those ideas may be discussed at a special U.N. Security Council meeting on Lebanon that France called for later Wednesday.
Lebanon's health minister said more than 50 people were killed Wednesday in the continuing Israeli strikes, raising the death toll from the past three days to 615, with more than 2,000 wounded.
This week has been the deadliest in Lebanon since the bruising 2006 monthlong war between Israel and Hezbollah.
Israeli military officials said they intercepted Hezbollah's surface-to-surface missile, which set off air-raid sirens in Tel Aviv and across central Israel. There were no reports of casualties or damage. The military said it struck the launch site in southern Lebanon.
The Israeli military said it was the first time a projectile fired from Lebanon had reached central Israel. Hezbollah claimed to have targeted an intelligence base near Tel Aviv last month in an aerial attack, but there was no confirmation. Hamas repeatedly targeted Tel Aviv in the opening months of the war in Gaza.
The launch ratcheted up hostilities in a region that appeared to be teetering toward another all-out war, even as Israel continues to battle Hamas in the Gaza Strip.
Israel said Wednesday that its air force had struck some 280 Hezbollah targets across Lebanon by early afternoon, including launchers used to fire rockets on the northern Israeli cities of Safed and Nahariya.
Fleeing families have flocked to Beirut and the coastal city of Sidon, sleeping in schools turned into shelters, as well as in cars, parks and along the beach. Some sought to leave the country, causing a traffic jam at the border with Syria.
The United Nations said more than 90,000 people have been displaced by five days of Israeli strikes. In all, 200,000 people have been displaced in Lebanon since Hezbollah began firing rockets into northern Israel nearly a year ago, drawing Israeli retaliation, according to the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
Hezbollah said it fired a Qader 1 ballistic missile targeting the headquarters of Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, which it blames for a recent string of targeted killings of its top commanders and for an attack last week in which explosives hidden in pagers and walkie-talkies killed dozens of people and wounded thousands, including many Hezbollah members.
Hezbollah's latest strikes included dozens of rockets fired Wednesday into northern Israel, the military said.
The rocket fire over the past week has disrupted life for more than 1 million people across northern Israel, with schools closed and public gatherings restricted. Many restaurants and other businesses are shut in the coastal city of Haifa, and there are fewer people on the streets. Some who fled south from communities near the border are coming under rocket fire again.
Israel has moved thousands of troops who had been serving in Gaza to the northern border. It says Hezbollah has some 150,000 rockets and missiles, including some capable of striking anywhere in Israel, and that the group has fired some 9,000 rockets and drones since last October.
Lt. Col. Nadav Shoshani, an Israeli military spokesperson, said the missile fired Wednesday had a “heavy warhead” but declined to elaborate or confirm it was the type described by Hezbollah. He dismissed Hezbollah's claim of targeting the Mossad headquarters, located just north of Tel Aviv, as “psychological warfare.”
The Iranian-made Qader is a medium-range surface-to-surface ballistic missile with multiple types and payloads. It can carry an explosive payload of up to 800 kilograms (1,760 pounds), according to the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies. Iranian officials have described the liquid-fueled missile as having a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,240 miles).
Cross-border fire began ramping up Sunday after the pager and walkie-talkie bombings, which killed 39 people and wounded nearly 3,000, many of them civilians. Lebanon blamed Israel, but Israel did not confirm or deny responsibility.
The next day, Israel said its warplanes struck 1,600 Hezbollah targets, destroying cruise missiles, long- and short-range rockets and attack drones, including weapons concealed in private homes. The strikes racked up the highest one-day death toll in Lebanon since Israel and Hezbollah fought a bruising monthlong war in 2006.
An Israeli airstrike Tuesday in Beirut killed Ibrahim Kobeisi, whom Israel described as a top Hezbollah rocket and missile unit commander. Military officials said Kobeisi was responsible for launches toward Israel and planned a 2000 attack in which three Israeli soldiers were kidnapped and killed. Hezbollah later confirmed his death.
It was the latest in a string of assassinations and other setbacks for Hezbollah, which is Lebanon's strongest political and military actor and is widely considered the top paramilitary force in the Arab world.
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Chehayeb reported from Beirut. Associated Press Writer Jon Gambrell in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, contributed to this report.
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Melanie Lidman, Tia Goldenberg And Kareem Chehayeb, The Associated Press